Rewarding Environment: Related Resources

Related Reports

We collaborate with many organizations, associations, and government entities as we work to identify how we can improve the compensation and work environments of the early care and education workforce.

In 1997, nine years after the original National Child Care Staffing Study, the Center for the Childcare Workforce interviewed directors at the centers still in operation to assess changes in wages, benefits and turnover; whether increases in public investment for child care have benefited the child care workforce; and the extent to which former welfare recipients are employed in center-based child care.

Who Cares? Child Care Teaching and the Quality of Care in America

By Marcy Whitebook, Deborah Phillips, and Carollee Howes (1990)

This landmark study explored how teaching staff and their working conditions in 225 centers affect the caliber of center-based child care available in the United States. It first brought public attention to the problem of low wages and high turnover, and children attending lower-quality centers and centers with more staff turnover were less competent in their language and social development.

No Single Ingredient: 2020 Vision for the Early Learning Workforce

Read Marcy Whitebook’s speech at the U.S. Departments of Education and Health and Human Services Early Learning Tour, Denver, CO April 20, 2010. The speech identifies how accessible and relevant preparation, support for going learning, and reward are all essential ingredients for good teaching and proposes necessary federal actions to ensure better policies.

The National Child Care Staffing Study – Revisited Four Years in the Life of Center-Based Child Care

By Marcy Whitebook, Deborah Phillips, and Carollee Howes

In 1992, CCW returned to the original staffing study sites to assess changes in wages, benefits and turnover. Through interviews with 225 center directors across the nation, this follow-up study found meager improvement in teaching staff wages, identified in the original findings as the most important predictor of quality child care.